“People who count their chickens before they are hatched, act very wisely, because chickens run about so absurdly that it is impossible to count them accurately” Oscar Wilde
It's quite bad to spend your Saturday evening writing about what you have just done (why oh why, my Blog Critic would sniff, if he weren't currently pretending not to be reading my blog, would you imagine anyone to be interested, Cocky Girl?) But anyway. If this ever forms some kind of diary for me, and thereby prevents me from forgetting the past couple of hours, then all jolly good. Sometimes, you just have to accept that you are ridiculous.
This is all because at some point today I saw a clip on kiddie TV about hypnotising a chicken and have been rather carried away with the idea. Please see previous blog.
Anyway, I was thinking it would have been one of those strange little twists of life - you know, rather unproductive day because of feeling so bleurgh and hungover, but - hey! - not THAT unproductive after all because I learnt to hypnotise a chicken. That was the broad plan of it, anyhow.
The first thing I did was utterly humiliate myself in front of a friendly neighbour who we happened to run into on the way to the chickens' house.
Friendly neighbour (jovially): Ah, you're on animal duty this weekend, are you?
Me: Yes, yes, just off to collect the eggs and feed the chickens.
4 Year old (conspiratorially): But this time, we're not just going to FEED the chickens, are we Mummy?
Friendly Neighbour (slightly curious): NO? What are you doing then?
Me: Oh, you know, feed them and things.
4 year old: No we're not, Mummy, we're going to do er..er.. that thing to them tonight. You said so. What are we doing to them?
Me: Did I say so? Oh, no, just feed them and perhaps let them out for a wander...
4 year old (wide-eyed and aggrieved) : But you PROMISED we could do that...that thing to the chickens and take photos and that's why we've got the camera and you said you'd never done it before and you didn't know that it would work and we had to be quiet while you looked on the computer for how to do it...
Friendly neighbour: (quizzical silence bordering on something more aghast). Looks at camera.
Me (seeing nothing for it - friendly neighbour could, after all, be imagining all sorts of grotty things by now): Oh! You mean, er, hypnotise! Ah yes, we're just going to hypnotise them as well, I'd forgotten...
Friendly Neighbour (long look): You're going to hypnotise P's chickens?
Me: Well, no all of them, just one probably, and only if they don't mind, you know...
3 year old: Because if we snap their heads off they would run around in circles even though they are dead.
FN: (Silence and utterly stunned look.)
Me: Yes, well, we're not going to snap their heads off. Just feed them, and you know...hypnotise them. A bit.
3 year old: We like chicken noodles, don't we Mummy?
FN: (Eyebrows hitting the clouds) Silence.
Me: Well, we're not going to use them for chicken noodles, we're just going to feed and ...er... hypnotise one, and oooh look at the time, they must be hungry, come on...
FN: Do you know how to hypnotise a chicken?
Me (just squirming in shame by now): Ohhhh YES! Nothing to it! There are, erm, lots of different ways but erm we're going to use chalk tonight. Anyway, must dash...
4 year old: You don't, Mummy, you just saw it on TV today and you made us be really quiet while you watched it and then YOU SAID it was really lucky that we're looking after the chickens this weekend cos we could go and try to do it...
Me (bright red attempt at airy, all-is-normal laugh): NO, no that was Daddy, darling, don't you remember? Mummy's very good at hypnotising chickens...well, anyway, must dash...
FN: Erm....well, good luck. Er, yes, good luck. (Long look and very obvious mental note not to ask me to let his dog out again)
3 year old (high pitched yell for whole street): CHICKENS! WE'RE COMING! MUMMY GOING TO GET YOU AND HIPPO-SIZE YOU.
So, that was the start. And it didn't get much better.
I should probably say straight out that these chickens were not receptive to the idea of being hypnotised and this made it tricky from the off. "Keep your chicken calm and quiet and use soothing and encouraging tones to send her into a state of deep relaxation", the blurb on hypnotising chickens told me. "Encourage her towards you and show her kindness and love in the process".
Hmm.
So I put my soothing and encouraging face on and went to the coop. The chickens swayed gently and gave me beady, sidelong looks.
"Hello, darlings" I tried. This felt so silly. "Hello, ladies" was a little better, and I was sure I was feeling a thaw in the hen hostility when my youngest threw herself at the wire and screeched, "Oi, chickens, we going to HIPPO-SIZE you".
Chickens obviously do not like shouty 3 year old banshees making them jump and descended at once into a chorus of indignant, feathery squawking. And when they calmed down, they had retreated firmly to the far side of their den and lined up in solidarity, glaring.
"Go on, Mummy, hippo-size them now!" the eldest said, all wide eyes and anticipation.
"I think we're going to have to let them out for a little run, first" I said, to his utmost joy. Usually I say NOT to regular request that we "let them out just for a little bit pleeeaaassssee", scared by visions of mad chickenly dashes for freedom on my watch, and the bushes full of lurking, camouflaged foxes, and P and G coming home to No Chickens At All and it being All My Fault etc etc. But today, with my hypnosis plans afoot, I said yes.
I had no idea chickens could run so fast. Within seconds they were up the garden path and out of sight.
"They know you're going to hippo-size them, Mummy, and they are running away for ever" the eldest informed me as we hell-for-leathered after them. "We'll just catch them first" I reassured him.
Thirty minutes later and we were still Just Catching Them. I now know that chickens can run, jump, hide, squash behind obstacles and position themselves right under the centre of the trampoline, where it is impossible to catch them without commando-crawling through wet grass. They also know to wait until you are at your most indisposed under the trampoline before they gallop gleefully off to the safety of Somewhere Else. I also now think that chickens can chuckle, and if they can't, they can produce a near-as-dammit sound at the most opportune moments. 45 bloody minutes it took to catch those chickens. During which time, I slid in fox poo, got grass stains over my shirt, scratched my forehead on the trampoline strings, sat on an egg and called them "buggers" in front of both my children.
"OH, Mummy, just CATCH them, will you?"
It was one of THOSE moments, which I think we all have, rather often. I used to work for a big Japanese newspaper and have a wardrobe and a salary. And NOW? Now I roll around in wet, pooey grass being outsmarted by feathery escapologists, and get reprimanded by very short people. For free.
"When will we do the hippo-sizing Mummy?" J asked when they were all finally back in their coop and looking happy and refreshed for a spot of exercise.
I told him that I felt tonight wasn't the right time after all, and that I was tired, and I thought we should try again tomorrow and he responded that I'd SAID that I was GOOD at hippo-sizing chickens and he'd been looking FORWARD to it and it wasn't FAIR. So I said the chickens were not in a good mood and did he WANT us to get bitten to death (meaning mozzies - there were swarms of them)? I marched both cross children back out of the house, straight back into (oh joy) my Friendly Neighbour and Another Friendly Neighbour who did that thing of being deep in conversation, seeing me coming and suddenly going quiet.
FN: How did it go?
Me: Oh yes, fine fine.
4 Year Old: Actually, that's a lie because Mummy didn't do it, because they escaped and she couldn't catch them. And Mummy said if we stayed the chickens would all come out again and and bite us until we die.
3 Year old: They were buggers, those chickens.
FNs: (Long pause and slight I-told-you-so look from one to the other) Right. Erm, good.
So the long and short of it is, I still don't know whether I can hypnotise a chicken. But it's only Saturday. Lets see. I do however know that I can freak the wits out of my neighbours.
It's all the fault of CITV. I knew I should never have broken the CBBC ONLY rule.
